Archive for June, 2009
Why Production Music Helps Your Project
Hello Everybody
I just had a few thoughts about production music and how it enhances you project.
Here at Creative Digital, we write and record audio tours for entertainment attractions like Titanic, Bodies, the Exhibition, The Edgar Allen Poe Museum, etc.
In the past, you would just go to these exhibits, and at stop 1, you would read a blurb about what you are seeing, them move on to the next….all this was fine, but it wasn’t very entertaining, and the guy behind you had to wait for you to finish before he or she could read the information.
Now, in this world where we are entertained most of the time with our Ipods and video games, these attractions use audio tours to create a complete experience for their customers.
These tours consist of a voice which becomes your tour guide, music, and sound effects to create an audio “scene” that puts you in the moment . The person taking the tour uses in many cases, an Ipod or mp3 player to go from stop to stop, with the advantage of going at his or her own pace, and even skipping stops of no interest. The voice tells the story, and the music helps set the mood for the different stops along the way. The voice and the production music can create a sad, happy, energetic, dramatic, or any other type mood. Also, period music, that is, music from the particular time associated with the stop, helps set the tone and takes you back in time to the particular era. If there is a horse and buggy scene, a little banjo music is good, along with some sound effects of horses and other things that might be in the scene.
Have a scene with computers? How about a little techno to portray the technological advances of today…Music libraries like Kwiksounds Music Library, provide many types of royalty free music that you can use in your projects, at an affordable price. You can order these right off the website and download them at your convienience.
That’s it for today…..
Yak soon
Danny Jones
Creative Digital/Kwiksounds Music Library
New Children’s Song From Caroline and Danny
Hello again!
I just wanted to update you guys about what was going on at Creative Digital. My writing partner, Caroline Figiel, and I just finished a Kwanzaa song for children. We have been writing children’s songs for about 8 years now, as you can see at our website, www.kidsvaluepack.com. The Kwanzaa song was a request from songsforteaching.com. They have had a lot of requests for Kwanzaa songs, so we decided to put our heads together and come up with something…see what you think?
Click on the link to listen:What You Wanna Sing About-Kwanzza
Yak Later
Danny
Zoom H2 Digital Recorder for Band Directors
Hello Again Everybody!
I’ved been getting a lot of questions about recording your school band, choral group, orchestra, and even individual musicians, so I thought I would put up this post.
I have been in the recording and music business for 30 years, and have tried everything portable that has come along. I had a minidisc in the last couple of years too…which worked OK for the time.
But now we have the Zoom H2 digital recorder with built in mics! It records to an SD card like your camera, has 4 built in mics, sounds great, and mounts on a mic stand with the adapter that comes with it!
All you have to do is put the Zoom in front of the band on a stand where it will get the sound of the band as the listener would, put the record volume most likely on it’s lowest setting, because the band will be so loud(you might have to experiment with this) and hit record! (If it gets too loud and distorts, the recording will be unusable, you can always bump the volume up later) then, transfer the file to your pc either directly or by taking out the SD card and transfering with your card reader.
You then can edit the files with Audacity , which is free on the web, or some other software.
It really is simple! And the Zoom is only $179, with a 4 gig card included. For more info go here www.buyprosound.net/ZoomH2ForBandDirectors.htm.
If you need any more info of have any questions about recording or editing, please feel free to email me danny@buyprosound.net and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Yak Later
Danny
Important Things About Recording and Recording Yourself Live
Tips about recording yourself live
As a new band to the music scene, we were extremely excited when we first started gigging. For a few months, we had a steady weekend performance two times a month. It doesn’t take long for people to start asking you for your CD. The only problem was, we didn’t have one, and we hadn’t really given much thought to recording one either. Of course, the bug was now in our ear, so we decided that we would record our next gig. To avoid the mistakes that we made, this article will talk about recording yourself live.
There are basically two types of live recording. One is the 2-track recording and the other one is the multitrack recording.
2-track Recording
The least expensive and the easiest is the 2-track recording. This type of recording is either a recording from the board mix that gets recorded directly onto the CD or a room mike mix. Sometimes this 2-track recording is a combination of both a board mix and a room mike mix. Now we did not have anyone to record for us, so we had to set it up for ourselves. If you have to record yourself, you can use either a camcorder or a minidisk player. For both of these pieces of equipment and for the best results, you want to be sure that there is a built in microphone. For the camcorder, you’ll need to “volunteer” a friend to either turn the record button on or off. If you already have the equipment and it doesn’t have a built-in mic, make sure that you have the necessary microphone attachments. For the best results, you will want to place your camcorder on a tripod.
Multitrack Recording
This kind of recording lets you record more than one input microphone at the same time. Multitrack recording is best when you are new and you have several songs that you need to record right away. A good type of recording to use if you are trying to release a demo. If your band is more of a live stage band than a studio band, multitrack recording is the way you want to go. If you are going to release a live album, again multitrack recording is the best way to go.
There is something about performing before a group of people that is magic. Every performance is unique in its ability to capture the enthusiasm and energy of the public and what better way to capture this than through a live recording. Finally this allows you to hear how you connected to the audience as well as how you played. This will allow the band to know what to practice and what areas in your music to pinpoint for improvement.
By the way, if you are looking into a professional way of it, think about certificate online program for this industry and you can get to the new level with it.